


Downtime

by singingwithoutwords



Series: Crackverse [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint is bored, Crack, as is my brain, dating sim, the internet is a weird place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1722839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingwithoutwords/pseuds/singingwithoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What are you doing?”<br/>“Trying to get enough experience to ask Stark out.”</p><p>Or: the one where Clint plays an Avengers dating sim and apparently Tony really can be romanced with food.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downtime

**Author's Note:**

> I ain't even sorry.

Honestly, nothing on the internet surprises Clint anymore. He's seen things in the bowels of cyberspace that would drive lesser men to drink or despair or both. He has seen – and occasionally participated in – the havoc fangirls can wreak when they choose. Fanart and fanfiction are not new concepts to him, and neither is the insane shit Tumblr gets up to.

The dating sim _is_ new, but it doesn't surprise him at all.

It's as much boredom as curiosity that makes him open the game. He's still benched now that the emergency is over, and he'd rather avoid the reporters camped at seemingly every exit - there were a lot of cell phones in New York that day - which means he's basically stuck inside, and he can only train so many hours a day. Really, he hasn't got anything better to do, so why not?

The story's pretty basic, and in less than a minute Clint is a beautiful young woman named Candy with unspecified powers who's been invited to join the Avengers, apparently contingent on her hooking up with one of them in a month. As far as Clint's concerned, there is no way he isn't getting at least a good laugh out of this, so he settles more comfortably on his bed and starts selecting options.

Five minutes later his character's in the kitchen flirting painfully with a pretty good likeness of Dr. Banner. He's wasted fourteen cycles of gameplay trying to think like a teenage girl and failing miserably at it.

“Sorry, Doc, but it looks like we aren't meant to be,” he tells the game, wandering off to a different part of headquarters.

Thor is on the roof in full armor and talks entirely in capital letters, and it takes three exchanges of dialogue before he can't take the hammer puns anymore. Game-him is in the shooting range with a hilariously misdrawn bow, and he's not about to go flirting with himself, so on to the pool, and holy shit he wishes Nat would wear that bikini in real life.

He's ridiculously pleased that there's a possible lesbian ending, and vows to achieve it no matter the cost to his enthusiasm or sanity.

Turns out the secret to winning Nat's heart is to tell her she's pretty and offer to race her at laps. Candy never wins. They go on a date to the beach, probably so they didn't have to draw Nat in anything but that bikini. Candy buys Nat a fruity drink and they talk about how boys just don't understand. Clint has to take a couple minutes to laugh his ass off before he can finish the date.

He barely makes Candy's deadline, but he does get them together. Candy wears a dress at the wedding, Nat a white tux. He uploads his score as therealhawkeye, because nobody's going to believe that, anyway, and restarts the game.

“Okay, Banner- this time your hot geeky ass is _mine_.”

A week later, the top five scores are all therealhawkeye, he still refuses to flirt with himself even by proxy, and he privately thinks he's been returned to field duty so he'll stop wasting SHIELD resources on a dating sim. Nat knows about the game, of course, because he does not keep secrets from her. She likes to sit next to him while he plays and make ridiculous comments because Black Widow is a  _massive fucking dork and no one will ever believe him._

Really, the only thing that  _does_ surprise him about the whole affair is how terrifyingly effective cheeseburgers are at bagging him the real Tony Stark.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Now, if someone would be kind enough to write Clint courting Tony with fast food, that would be lovely. ^^  
> /shot
> 
> Ow. @.@


End file.
